Abstract
Lack of adequate floral resources is a key driver of bee population declines and honey bee colony loss, particularly in agricultural landscapes. Most studies evaluating floral resource use and land management consequences in honey bees focus on the period after new colony founding from reproductive swarms (spring-fall). Few studies have investigated nutrition in the late-winter/early-spring (LWES) period, the critical time when colonies break their winter dormancy and increase their colony populations in preparation for swarming. Growth during this timeframe influences beekeepers’ ability to produce new colonies and predicts colony productivity for the remainder of the active season. In agricultural areas growing summer annual crops, many fields are fallow during LWES and anecdotally grow large quantities of early blooming winter annual herbaceous “weeds”. The value of these resources to honey bee colony health is unknown. In this study, conducted in central Kentucky, we characterized blooming winter annual plant abundance across different land cover types. We placed colonies on sites with varying quantities of blooming winter annual plants and assessed colony growth and individual worker immune system function over LWES. We found that blooming winter annual plants are most abundant on croplands and limited on forested sites and sites dominated by grasses (including lawns and pastures). Colonies on sites with the lowest quantities of blooming winter annual plants showed reduced LWES growth and patterns of individual worker gene expression consistent with nutritional stress relative to colonies on sites with greater abundances of blooming winter annuals. We used the National Land Cover Database to show that proximity to crop fields at larger spatial scales also had positive impacts on colony growth during LWES. Taken together, these results suggest blooming winter annual plants, and, more generally, croplands, may provide critical floral resources for honey bees during the critical pre-swarm growth period following winter dormancy.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 108653 |
Journal | Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment |
Volume | 356 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 15 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture Hatch Program (1012993) and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Pollinator Health Fund (549049). We thank Keenan Bishop, Clay Stamm, Krista Lea, Matt Peake, and Shannon Rudd, whose help was invaluable for finding and preparing study sites for this project. We also thank the generous landowners who agreed to allow us access to their properties for this study. Anna Foose, Nikhil Pallem, Elisabeth Rintamaa, Alaina Smith, Ruth Stanley, Emma Mohs, Ila Iniyavan, Bernadette Mach, Grayson Grume, and Victoria Stanton helped significantly with field data collection, data entry, and molecular analyses, and Emily Morris (Kentucky Geological Survey) provide cartographic assistance.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture Hatch Program ( 1012993 ) and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Pollinator Health Fund ( 549049 ). We thank Keenan Bishop, Clay Stamm, Krista Lea, Matt Peake, and Shannon Rudd, whose help was invaluable for finding and preparing study sites for this project. We also thank the generous landowners who agreed to allow us access to their properties for this study. Anna Foose, Nikhil Pallem, Elisabeth Rintamaa, Alaina Smith, Ruth Stanley, Emma Mohs, Ila Iniyavan, Bernadette Mach, Grayson Grume, and Victoria Stanton helped significantly with field data collection, data entry, and molecular analyses, and Emily Morris (Kentucky Geological Survey) provide cartographic assistance.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
Keywords
- Commercial beekeeping
- Cover crops
- Nutritional stress
- Restoration ecology
- Weeds for bees
- Winter land management
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology
- Animal Science and Zoology
- Agronomy and Crop Science